The government today said it will stick with a controversial permit scheme for car imports despite criticism it is unfairly enriching ethnic Malay entrepreneurs and undermining national automaker Proton.

"Yes, at the moment this is the most workable system," Trade Minister Rafidah Aziz told reporters amid a furious row with former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad on the issue.

Rafidah, nicknamed "Malaysia's Iron Lady" for her tough approach to her job, showed the strain that the affair has put her under when she broke down in tears when asked if she would apologise to Mahathir over their war of words.

"Don't ever anyone suggest that I was rude to Mahathir," she said as she choked back sobs.

As her aides scrambled to find some tissue for her, a tearful Rafidah continued: "I cannot be possibily be rude to him. I consider him as a fatherly figure."

Deputy Information Minister Zainuddin Maidin on Monday urged Rafidah to seek an apology from Mahathir following the row over Proton, Mahathir's pet project which he initiated in the 1980s.

Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's office on Monday issued a list of recipients of the import permits which were launched in 1970 as a way to help ethnic Malays businesspeople who were lagging behind the minority Chinese.

The list includes four men, including two former senior officials at Rafidah's trade ministry, who together received more than 28,000 of the 67,158 permits issued this year alone.

Rafidah insisted there was no patronage involved in the award of the permits and that she would not resign from her post over the revelations.

"I have nothing to do with any of the owners of the permits. I stand by God," she said as she touched a copy of the Muslim holy book, the Koran.

Poorly treated

Proton's chief executive officer Tengku Mahaleel Ariff triggered the row earlier this month when he said that the 20-year-old carmaker was being "poorly treated" by the government.

He found support from Mahathir, now an official adviser to Proton, who said the special permits allowed importers to bring in cars which were underpriced.

However, Rafidah retorted that the national carmaker should become more competitive and improve the quality of its "shoddy" vehicles instead of complaining about the import scheme.

The national carmarker used to sell six out of every 10 new cars in Malaysia but growing foreign competition is eating into its market share, which fell to 44 percent in 2004 from 48 percent in 2003.